


Death is only a door

by NohaIjiachi



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen, Kink Meme, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4089130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NohaIjiachi/pseuds/NohaIjiachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt took a long, thoughtful pause. “It is not ours to decide if a man should live or die. A life is not ours to take.” He started, slowly, with the kind of voice he’d use in court to make a case. “This applies to all lives. Our own included.”<br/>Father Lathom tensed hard in the time of a single blink.<br/>“Why is that?”<br/>“You know why is that.” Father Lathom replied, putting his cup down. Matt could hear the liquid slosh inside because of his trembling hand. But the priest’s voice was firm. “What are we <i>really</i> talking about here, Matthew?”<br/>“I don’t know.” Matt whispered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death is only a door

**Author's Note:**

> I have become, apparently, a word-spitting unstoppable machine.
> 
> This is not a happy story and doesn't end well. Everything is in the tags. Consider yourself warned.
> 
>  
> 
> [(from this prompt on the kinkmeme)](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1742.html?thread=3345614#cmt3345614)

“Matt?”  
Karen’s voice was low and shaky, barely contained under a false pretense of normalcy. That’s the only way she sounded, lately.  
Matt turned his face toward her, crossing his fingers on the desk. She gulped around a knot in her throat, stepping into the office.  
“I… Had been doing some thinking lately.”  
Her voice echoed in the too empty space. Too many rooms, for only two people.  
“I think—“ She gulped again. “I think I need some time. Away.”  
Matt’s heart skipped a bit.  
“It’s just—“ She let out a nervous chuckle. Fidgeted with a tuft of her long hair. “I feel like I’m going crazy in here.”  
_I know what you mean._ Matt thought.  
He nodded.  
“A-and. I have a friend out the city.” She said, shifting her weight from a foot to the other. “Offered to have me for a while- So I could get away from the madness that is New York. Breath some fresh air. Clear my head, you know?”  
“Yeah.” Matt replied, low. “I see.”  
“I’m not— leaving you.” Karen said hastily, taking some more steps toward him. “I won’t— I just need some time. A couple of weeks, top.”  
“It’s ok, Karen.” Matt smiled softly. “We all have been through… Some hard times. You have all the rights to need some time to rest.”  
Karen sighed, sounding clearly relieved. “Are you sure…?”  
“I’ll be fine for a couple of weeks alone, Karen. You go take a vacation.”

**

_”I can’t do this anymore, Matt.”_

_It was late night. Late enough that Matt’d be out in his suit if not for the fact that he and Foggy were still working on a pretty heavy case._  
_“Go home.” Matt replied, stifling a yawn. Ever since he had captured Fisk, it was like all the stress and tiredness he had managed to ignore up to that point had come crashing on him at full force. He felt tired all the time, but now they finally had work. He really couldn’t afford to spend time doing nothing but resting. And Foggy, despite sounding distant and closed off, was still sitting at the other side of the table._  
_Matt was gonna give him time to get over all that had happened without pushing, he owed him that much at least._  
_“I can finish these reports on my own.” He added, shuffling through the papers. “Go home and sleep, you’ve spent way too much hours at the office, this week, anyway.”_  
_“I wasn’t talking about the case.” Foggy said, nervously collecting the sheet he had scattered around while reading. “I was talking about us.”_  
_Matt stopped shuffling the paper, hands hovering mid-air, turning his face toward him. “What?”_  
_“I— I thought that if I gave it time, things would get better.” Foggy said, voice forcefully neutral. “They didn’t.”_  
_“Foggy—“_  
_“When I went job hunting with Marci, the firm that took her offered me a place.” Foggy kept talking, ignoring his interruption. “I think I’m gonna take it.”_  
_Matt’s sharp intake of breath caught in his throat as his stomach fell somewhere around his feet._  
_A long silence stretched between them, ad Matt’s blood slowly returned to his face after he literally felt himself violently losing color._  
_“Foggy—“ Matt managed to cough out. “I— what?”_  
_Foggy stood. His heart was beating violently, but that was all Matt could read._  
_It was as if an invisible, sound-proofing wall had appeared between them._  
_“I’m sorry.” Foggy said, not without a gentle note in his voice. “But I— I can’t do this. I tried, Matt. I really tried. But staying here, with you, t-trying to play it dumb— It’s not working.” He sighed heavily. “I know I can’t go back in time and undo what happened. I know I can’t force you to stop what you are doing, and I know I don’t want to ask you to.”_  
_Matt followed him outside the office in the main space on unsteady legs._  
_“Foggy-“_  
_“And I know that I hate this. I hate looking at you and seeing a stranger.” There was definitely tears in Foggy’s voice, now. “I hate lying to Karen. To Brett. To anyone we know. I hate it, and I wish you would stop, but you won’t. So I’m doing the only thing that will keep me away from drinking myself into an alcohol poisoning.”_  
_Matt found Karen’s desk and put an hand on it, to steady himself. He wanted to fall on his knees at Foggy’s feet and beg-_  
_“Are you… Sure?” He asked, instead, voice trembling._  
_Foggy hesitated. “Would you be able to stop putting on the suit?” He asked, softly._  
_Matt chewed the inside of his cheek, not answering._  
_“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Foggy whispered. “I’m sorry. I know this is coming out the blue. But I actually spent weeks thinking about it. Trying to argue with myself that I could make it, that we could make it. But I couldn’t find any supporting evidence, and just looking at you and knowing what you do— it’s killing me, Matt.” He ended, in what was barely more than a weak whisper._  
_Matt tried to find something in him, anything, to convince Foggy that he was making a mistake, that they could find a way, put the past in the past—_  
_“I can’t force you, if you have decided.” Matt said, instead, his voice unnaturally steady. “If— If that’s what you want to do— go do it.”_  
_“Matt—“ Foggy sighed, shaking his head softly. “I’m sorry.”_  
_Matt tried to say -so am I-, but nothing came out of his mouth._

_**_  
Karen had stayed. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t even sounded surprised. Either Foggy told her first, or she just seen what Matt had been truly blind to up to that moment.  
She stayed, but it was like trying to keep together a jar that had been broken one time too many.

You ended losing some pieces, somewhere, and cutting yourself on the sharp edges.

If the office had been too big for two people, it was a wasteland for a single, blind individual. His steps echoed where there was no carpet, and he could hear the sheet of paper with their names still taped outside the entrance door murmur to the wind in the corridor.

He hadn’t found the strength to tear it down, yet.  
He tried, one morning, after the third week of Foggy leaving the office. He made it as far as tearing away a small corner of it before feeling bile rising in his throat.  
He spent the next hour muffling his sobs against his fists.

Karen’s scent lingered in the main area. The flower-y but not too aggressive perfume she started using when she met them. The stench of anxiety and nervousness and whatever it was that had been gnawing inside her until she decided to leave the city entirely.

She said two weeks. Matt marked the calendar, and wrote down “stop hoping.” the day she was supposed to get back.

**

Getting up in the morning was hard.  
It didn’t matter if he’d been outside the previous night or not, if he slept enough or not.  
Rolling out the safeness of his blankets, putting his feet on the cold floor, stepping into the bathroom to go wash his face, it was harder day after day. A real battle.

Some days, he would lose, and won’t bother.

That morning was no exception, but he managed. As soon as he stepped into the living room the smell of unwashed dishes attacked his nose, nearly making him gag.  
If he had even a bit of appetite, that was enough to kill it.  
He took a shower, fast and efficient, out of habit. He put on a suit, using the last hole on his belt. He went out, ignoring the three coffee shops he could’ve stepped in to grab a bite on his way.

He went toward Karen’s desk when he entered the office, padding for the phone, pressing a button.

_”No new voicemails.”_

He went into his office and slowly sat. Took the calendar.

Three days after, his own note was still there.

_Stop hoping._

**

Mass was, reassuringly, still the same.  
Sit down. Stand. Repeat the prayers. Sit down. Kneel. Listen.  
He’d started going everyday, before stepping into his desolated empty and job-less office. It was something that kept him grounded.

Father Lathom would approach him after, sometimes, when the church had emptied and it was just him and Matt. Sometimes he would leave him alone, lost in thoughts, surrounded by the scent of the candles and old wood, fingers tight around a rosary.

That morning he sat near him with a soft sigh.  
“Matthew.” He started, kind. “If you want to talk—“  
“Seal of confession. I know, Father.” Matt replied, a corner of his mouth slightly tugging up in what passed as a smile on Matt Murdock’s face these days.  
“Not that.” Father Lathom replied, serene as usual. “Just— as a friend. If you want to talk about something— I’m here.”  
Matt considered it, for a while.

He had left voice mails both in Foggy’s and Karen’s phones a couple of days earlier. Just asking how they were doing. If everything was alright. If they wanted to drink something together when they had the time.

That last part had been so difficult to say, and he said it two times. It left him completely drained and devoid of energies for the rest of the day.

He had yet to receive a response from either of them.

He called Claire, that morning. She answered sounding breathless.  
_”Ehy.”_ She said. _”Moved the night shift to the morning one?”_  
“No, no.” Matt said, with the tiniest hint of a laugh in his voice. “I just— Haven’t heard from you in a while. I was wondering how you were doing.”  
_”I can’t complain.”_ She replied, her voice sensibly calmer. _”Working outside New York it’s definitely less stressing. I even hate cats a little less, now.”_  
“Oh… You are still out of the city?” Matt said, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.  
_”Yeah. I know things have cleared up around there, but— still wasn’t looking forward to get back, to be honest. I like it here.”_ She sounded calm. And honest. _”Are you sure you are not hurt?”_  
“I’m fine, Claire. I swear.” He murmured. “I just wanted to check on you.”  
_”Good. Well, I’m fine, too. I’ll let you know when I’ll be back, until then you keep yourself out of trouble, you hear me?”_  
“Yes, Ma’am.”  
_”Good. I have to go back to work, now. Take care, Matt.”_  
“You too, Claire.”  
He stared at the phone for a while. His chest felt as if there was a open void in it, had been like that for a while, and sometimes it was hard to ignore the feeling.  
When he heard people starting to get inside for the morning Mass, he followed them.

Father Lathom was staring at him expectantly.  
“Things are a bit rough, lately.” Matt murmured. “In— in the life of Matt. Not the other one.”  
“Mh-mh.” Father Lathom hummed, in a unequivocal _go on_.  
Matt opened and closed his mouth like a fish for a couple of time, confused words rolling around his mind, each one of them trying to get out first.

He had no idea how he was supposed to explain the feeling of dread he constantly felt on his shoulders. Or the hole open in his chest where his heart once was. Or the way his mind would sometimes get lost into a circle of repetitions for hours to no end to the point he would sometimes lose chunks of his days without remembering what he had been doing.  
The way he checked his phone obsessively hoping for something, anything—

“It’s hard.” He said, instead. “But— It’ll get better. I just like being here. It gives me a safe ground to stand on.”  
“I’m glad to hear that.” Father Lathom said, sounding slightly disappointed. “If you need me, I’m here. Remember that, son.”  
“I will.”

Nothing was getting better.

**

“Don’t— Don’t— _please don’t_ —“  
The girl didn’t answer, her chest soundless and steady. Matt pushed again and again and again.

“You can’t— _please_ —“ He hiccuped. “Oh God, please, _no_ —“

She didn’t answer.

**

The news talked about her the morning after.

Seven years old, strangled to death by a man found barely alive in front on the police’s doorstep, that had confessed his crime the instant he had been able to talk.

Her name was Jessica, she had a younger sister. She went with the man that had murdered her after he promised to help her find her sister’s doll, lost somewhere in the park.

Found dead hours later.

Matt was still in his suit, helmet scattered somewhere around the couch, in a ball of limbs inside his shower, when he heard the news from the radio he’d left on.

He started sobbing again.

**

“Hi. It’s me.” He murmured, broken, into the phone. “I know— I know you don’t want to— I hope you at least would listen to this— I— Something happened, last night, and I— I don’t know if I should have— What I could have—“

He took a deep breath. Started over.

“I can’t— I can’t _move_. I think I’m going insane.”

Deep breath. Start over.

“Please can we meet? I really need to hear a friendly voice a-and— I don’t want to be alone. I’m afraid that I’ll—“

Breath. Start.

“I need you.”

_”Voice message recorded. Send?”_

_”Voice message deleted.”_

**

“Matthew.”  
Father Lathom pushed a hot cup of something into his hands. Matt didn’t even pretend to take a sip.  
“What happened, son?”

He had managed to drag himself out the apartment, finally. Went to work. Checked the phone only to find no messages. Stepped into the office.

The wrong one.

Foggy’s smell was still there like he never left. Matt stood in the doorway, frozen, incapable of understanding how he managed to get into the wrong room. Left and right. It was simple.

The room was full of dust. No one had been in there for weeks.

Left and right.

A baby was capable of discerning _left and right._

He slid on the floor, his back against the wall, and _cried, cried, cried._

“I’ve been thinking. About life, and death.” Matt said, his voice scratchy from disuse. “About what is morally right, and what isn’t.”  
“I have the feeling we are not talking the same moral dilemma we already touched in the past.” Father Lathom replied, after taking a careful sip of his decaf. “Are we?”  
“No, we are not.” Matt said with a dry, humorless chuckle.  
“So, what are we talking about, then?”  
Matt took a long, thoughtful pause. “It is not ours to decide if a man should live or die. A life is not ours to take.” He started, slowly, with the kind of voice he’d use in court to make a case. “This applies to all lives. Our own included.”  
Father Lathom tensed hard in the time of a single blink.  
“Why is that?”  
“You know why is that.” Father Lathom replied, putting his cup down. Matt could hear the liquid slosh inside because of his trembling hand. But the priest’s voice was firm. “What are we _really_ talking about here, Matthew?”  
“I don’t know.” Matt whispered.

**

He had long stopped tried to make sense of his thoughts.

Stick taught him that the mind controlled the body. But he never learned that the mind could seize control of everything else.

Time passing stopped making sense. At some point he realized it had been months—

Months.

Matt stood, interrupting the voice that had started whispering in him at some point in the past weeks, took carefully measured steps, entered in Foggy’s office, stopped right in the middle.

“I think I want to kill myself.” He said, out loud, to no one.

 

**

He entered in the church slightly later than usual, Mass had already started.  
Today, the service was being held by a new, young priest that had recently joined them under Lathom’s guide.  
Slightly disappointed, Matt argued with himself that it was no problem. Father Lathom wouldn’t ever get far from the church. All he had to do was ask to see him, after Mass.  
He let himself slid comfortably in the ceremony. Stand up. Sit down. Pray.

 _”I want to kill myself.”_ he practiced, in his mind.  
He would sit down in front of Father Lathom, take a deep breath, and said those exact words.

_”I want to kill myself.”_

No running in circles around it with talking of morals and rhetoric. No slight hints. No half words and lies.  
The simple truth.

He wanted to kill himself.

Father Lathom would understand. He knew he would. He wouldn’t freak out, he wouldn’t get hysterical.  
He’d help him. Matt knew it.

**

“You’re Matt Murdock, aren’t you?” The young, new priest asked. “Father— F-father Lathom talked about you a lot.”  
“Does he?” Matt replied, voice low with an hint of surprise. “Can I see him?” He added, a little more pushy. He could feel himself losing a little bit of courage every second that passed.  
He had to do this thing, now.

The young, new priest, shivered.  
Matt felt the nervousness radiating out of him. He was sweating, fidgeting, anxious. His heart beating in a irregular pattern, his throat choked.  
Salt in the air.  
“I’m so, so sorry—“ the young, new priest whispered.

**

“Hi. I don’t know if you will ever hear this. It just felt wrong, not saying anything.

I took care of things. There wasn’t much to do but— I promise you won’t get creditors running after you because I forgot to pay a month of rent.

I left you something— again, it’s not much, but— It doesn’t really have real value, but— well, it’s all yours now.

I burned the suit, made sure to don’t leave a trace. The secret will come away with me.

I— well, I guess that’s all. Take care.

I love you.

Goodbye.”

_”Voice message: sent.”_

**

“Jesus—“ Karen whispered, watery, taking the phone away from her hear. “When did he— When was this sent?”  
“Last night.” Foggy replied, tight, his hands white around the steering wheel. “I noticed this morning.”  
Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead, throat tight.  
Matt’s voice sounded calm. Serene, even.  
The voice of someone that had finally took a decision after thinking about it for too much time.  
Foggy had listened to the message, feeling something deep down his stomach freezing. He barged into the living room, woke up Karen sleeping on the couch, launched a jacket on her and dragged her into his old, worse-for-wear car.  
Gave her the phone, told her to listen to the message.  
“Jesus—“ She hiccuped. “He’s not— He won’t— Would he?”  
Foggy didn’t answer, swerving violently and cutting off into a taxi’s path. Ignored the furious honking.  
He stopped with a screech in front of Matt’s building, climbing the stairs two steps at time, Karen following in her pajama under the jacket.

“MATT!” He yelled, kicking the door open. It gave in without any resistance. “Matt?”  
Karen ran into the bathroom as Foggy checked behind the kitchen counter and the bedroom.  
“He’s not here.” She said, breathless, as he shook his head.  
They wasted no time, running back down the stairs. Foggy caught a glimpse of his pearl white face as he turned the car on and made a U turn barely checking the backside mirror.

“Please be at the office please be at the office please be at the office…” He murmured like a mantra, only barely registering Karen looking at him, absolutely terrified, her back pressed into the sitting.

When he gracelessly stopped in front of the office building he was already over the entrance door by the time she climbed out the car.  
It took him half a minute to reach their floor.  
_Nelson & Murdock, Attorneys at law_.  
“Matt!” He coughed, opening the unlocked door. His nose was immediately assaulted by a stale smell of copper.  
“Matt?”  
He looked around. The shutters where down, leaving the office into a semi-darkness. He couldn’t see him anywhere.  
“Matt, please, this isn’t funny—“  
Something caught his attention. A dark spot, something trickling outside his ex-office—

When he stepped inside, heart beating in his throat, he found Matt.

**

Karen finally reached the floor, huffing and puffing.  
The door was open wide, a muffled, wounded whine coming from somewhere inside.  
“F-Foggy…?” She whispered, stepping inside on unsteady legs.

Foggy was _wailing_.

She hesitated, then followed the sound as she started to shed cold sweat. She entered what once was Foggy’s office, and looked towards the left corner.

She immediately thought back. At months and months and months ago, when she woke up in her apartment and the first thing she was capable of discerning had been a blood stain, getting larger and larger into her field of vision, the rug sucking it up into a nonsensical pattern.

She fell on her knees, in the stain, already dry.

Matt’s lips were white.

Foggy let out another sound that could only be described as the plea of a dying animal,doubled over Matt, clutching his head against him.

Nothing of this made any sense.

She heard a small voice, coming from somewhere. It took her a solid half minute to realize it was coming from the phone Matt was holding into his now cold hand.

She took it with trembling fingers, and put it on her hear.

 _“…You have to come, seriously, you have no idea what you are missing on!”_ Foggy said, from the phone.

 _”Yeah, tell him! You’re missing out, Matt!”_ Karen’s own voice said, from the phone.

She took the phone away and looked at him. It was a voice mail, a months old voice mail—

It reached the end, and started again.

And again.

And again.

And again…

**

He had left them precise dispositions.

Karen looked down, at the old, stained tombstone that said _“Jack Murdock”._

It made a strange contrast with the brand new one at its side.

_“Matthew Michael Murdock.”_

It said.

_“Death is only a door.”_

It said.

The funeral had ended what felt like ages ago. She and Foggy stood in front of the tombstone into the now empty graveyard, silent.

She took a peek at him. Foggy was staring down at Matt’s name, his face scrunched.

He still looked like the entire world has wronged him, and Karen knew that whatever had always put that special light into Foggy’s eyes, that had disappeared at some point months ago, will now never be back.

It was lost. Forever.

“What do you think it means?” She asked, soft and water-y, staring at the phrase that Matt had left them to put on his grave without a single explanation.

“It means nothing.” Foggy replied, voice empty and broken. “It means jack shit.”

He turned, his shoulders sagging, and she watched him walk away into the crisp, cold winter afternoon.


End file.
